As we communicated earlier, Dukascopy Bank was striving to become the first regulated bank to launch its own ICO. The start of the project was planned for the 1st of March. However, we got to know that Japanese Mizuho Bank has equally announced their token to be unveiled on the same day. We accept the challenge and move the date of the launch to the 28th of February - one day in advance. We believe that our great team developing this project for many months with incredible enthusiasm deserves to be the first worldwide. Please meet Dukascoin - the first cryptocurrency issued by a regulated bank. All details and related information including white paper are available at www.dukascoin.com. Information for press can be found here.

Starting from today, anyone can participate in the Airdrop, trade Dukascoin at the marketplace and enjoy its benefits.

Below we publish an open letter from the bank's co-CEO Dr Andre Duka.

An open letter from Dr Andre Duka, CEO-CTO of Dukascopy Bank SA

This letter is addressed to members of the crypto community, colleague-bankers, journalists, clients of the bank and everyone interested in Fintech.

Today, Dukascopy Bank is officially launching its crypto token  Dukascoin (DUK+)  the first payment coin issued for public use by a licensed and regulated bank, a Swiss bank at the least. I take this big event as a historic milestone for both the blockchain industry and the traditional banking sector. Recently, we have observed many announcements from banks about their in-house crypto projects, yet, to the best of my knowledge, no working solutions have been deployed to the market. In our case, we confirm the real start of a bank's crypto currency after a year of intense legal, technological and emotional effort that has required the consolidation of all our skills and knowledge.

So, how does the first banking ICO look like?

Our project significantly differs from any other ICO offered to the audience so far. The Dukascoin's uniqueness is not about the blockchain design complexity  in contrast, we have intentionally meant it to remain unsophisticated, for which we have picked a popular ERC-20 standard on the Ethereum blockchain and the Airdrop concept of token distribution. Issuance of new tokens will be free of charge and limited to new current accounts opening at Dukascopy Bank, whereby each new client will get 5 Dukascoins for free and an equal amount will be granted to a referrer if any exists. The bank itself will receive 10 new coins from undistributed tokens every time a new account is created. These coins will be used to pay rewards, support liquidity and for other similar purposes. Our project is unique because the Dukascoin will simultaneously reside in two environments  in the blockchain and in the books of a regulated bank. It means that when clients keep the coins inside Dukascopy, they can enjoy multiple benefits, for example, the Swiss deposit insurance scheme covering CHF 100,000, protection against bankruptcy of the bank, client may execute free and instants transfers of coins inside Dukascopy by simply knowing the receiver's phone number, at the same time all counterparties associated with the transfers are duly identified (not anonymous) as they become clients of a Swiss bank. All clients have an opportunity to use standard banking services like payment cards, investments, cheap currency exchange etc. And finally, bank's clients are always free to move their coins outside of the bank, exiting the secure area of the regulated bank in favor of risks and freedom of the blockchain.

To sell and buy Dukascoins, the bank has created a secure internal marketplace that is designed as an easy-to-understand bulletin board that is linked to clients' accounts at the bank. It allows posting conditional orders (providing liquidity) or picking the desired orders from other participants (using liquidity). All transactions executed on the internal marketplace are secured by the bank, so the client should not worry about receiving expected value when the transaction is accepted by a third-party. Another essential benefit of Dukascopy marketplace is a possibility to get a recognized bank statement that would be acceptable for other financial institutions and official authorities.

At the same time, I invite any reputable third-party crypto-exchange that would want to list the Dukascoin, to get in contact with the bank and we together will design a cooperation model.

To support Dukascoin liquidity, the bank has developed a special program to remunerate large providers of liquidity. Also, the bank will offer a system of significant rewards motivating Dukascoins savings. Rewards will be based on both crypto and fiat currencies. Additionally, there is a special offering for Dukascopy brokerage and trading clients who will benefit from using Dukascoins to fund trading accounts.

As a CEO of the bank, I'm excited about the project and invite everybody to take a look at the unique opportunities which will be offered at the initial stage of the project. I guarantee there are many interesting options worth exploring. Those who are interested to follow the Dukascoin project, I welcome to check the web site www.dukascoin.com that was specifically created for the ICO project. There you can find all the latest news, features, dates as well as the project's white paper.